Ignacio Garriga, secretary general and vice president of Vox, receives a monthly extra salary of 3,700 euros from the far-right Parliamentary Group in the Catalan Parliament, according to the accounts for 2023 that the party has just presented to the Catalan Chamber and to which EL PAÍS has had access. This extra salary is independent of the annual salary of 88,973.60 euros, plus 16,032.44 in allowances, that Garriga receives as a regional deputy and the remuneration he receives as a senior party official. In total, the number two Vox receives three salaries each month, two from public funds and a third, from the party’s funds, which is semi-public, since more than 80% of its funding comes from the State.
Garriga has not declared the extra salary paid to him by his parliamentary group in the “declaration of activities and public positions” that he has submitted to the Parliament and which appears on the institution’s website. He has acknowledged receiving money as the party’s general secretary, but without specifying the amount. However, three other Vox MPs have acknowledged receiving money from the far-right parliamentary group in their official declarations. These are its spokesperson, Joan Garriga Doménech, cousin of Ignacio Garriga, who admits to “invoicing as a freelancer, including for the parliamentary group”; and two others, Sergio Macián and Manuel Acosta, who declare that they carry out “management tasks for the parliamentary group, a paid position”.
The fact that Garriga received an undeclared extra salary from the Catalan Parliament was already suspected in view of her group’s accounts for the years 2021 and 2022. After the former Vox regional deputy for Tarragona Isabel Lázaro reported improper payments to the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia, the Parliament asked Vox for explanations regarding invoices paid to Garriga for an amount of 38,496.59 euros in those two years, as well as another 864.55 euros in payments for concepts such as the AMPA fee for the school where the children of the secretary general of Vox study, hairdressing, dry cleaning or supermarket expenses.
Garriga said he was the victim of “a campaign of fake news” that undermines his “honour and that of Vox” and only acknowledged “errors” in his group’s accounts for “less than 400 euros”, which he claimed to have corrected and returned. He did not, however, go into the invoices he charged to his own group for the provision of “professional services”. The Parliament asked him for explanations about the type of external services he provided to Vox, since the profession of number two of the party is that of a dentist.
The 2021 and 2022 accounts included multiple payments to Garriga for varying amounts, although in several months the figure of 1,538.46 gross euros was repeated, with a withholding of 538.46 for personal income tax. However, in the 2023 accounts, not known until now, it is clear that this is a bonus, since the general secretary receives a fixed amount on the 2nd of each month: 3,700 euros, with a withholding of 703 euros (19%). The monthly payments for this amount, 140% higher than the previous amount, began in September 2022 and have continued at least until October 2023. Vox’s accounts do not show any payment in July last year, but, instead, Garriga received a double payment in September. The extra salary disappears in November, only to reappear in December, for a slightly lower amount: 2,997 euros.
Following the irregularities detected in Vox’s accounting by the Ombudsman, who acts as the general auditor in the Catalan Chamber, the Parliament’s Board agreed to increase the control measures for the accounts of the parliamentary groups, which from now on will be subject to audits and not just to mere formal examinations. In Vox’s accounting for 2023, presented after the scandal broke out, it is very difficult to trace the existence of irregular payments, since the concepts are very generic: travel expenses, maintenance or miscellaneous expenses are the headings under which most of them are presented. What is noted is the payment of extra salaries to the main leaders of the group. In addition to the case of Ignacio Garriga, fixed payments to the group’s spokesperson, Juan Garriga Doménech, are also recorded from October last year. In this case, the amount is lower (1,063 euros) and the concept is the same: “provision of services”.
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Garriga’s total remuneration remains unknown. In addition to his salary as a regional deputy and the extra salary he receives from the parliamentary group, according to his accounts, in his declaration of activities and public positions that appears on the Parliament’s website he acknowledges that he also receives a salary as secretary general of the party, but does not detail the amount of this.
Vox’s official accounts for 2023 reveal that the amount allocated to remunerating the party’s national leadership amounts to 646,522 euros, 25% more than the previous year, but it does not specify how much each of its members receives, a lack of information that the Court of Auditors has criticized.
The Vox parliamentary group’s accounts for last year show that it received 971,493.24 euros in public subsidies, compared to 1,032,815.27 in 2022, as it lost one deputy, who left the party; and it had to undergo a strong adjustment, as it went from a deficit of 246,168.49 euros to a saving of 18,922.53.
A third of the subsidy that the group receives for its operation is used to pay for external services (319,115.79 euros) and a similar amount ends up in the hands of the national leadership of the party in Madrid (315,000 euros). Like most of those that Vox has in autonomous assemblies and municipalities throughout Spain, the group in the Catalan Parliament has an agreement with the National Executive Committee (CEN) by which it transfers a fixed annual amount in exchange for the provision of certain services, such as financial and legal advice, strategic advice, political positioning or communication strategy. It so happens that Garriga, as secretary general and national vice president of Vox, is part of the central apparatus of the party that the Catalan parliamentary group pays to provide support, which does not prevent him from also receiving personal payment as an external service provider.
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